Subjects

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Mulvaney: Cutting Aid to the Poor Is Compassionate for Those of Us Who
Pay for Them...

I was digging out variegated hosta for Ernesto when he
showed up the other day to pick up some bundles and the starters of Persian
Shield he so much loved to spark some of the edges of his large garden.I’d happened across a bunch of the Burmese
tropical plant, a serrated leaf with iridescent purple splashes of color
against a verdant green.Good stuff.

I recommend it for its color, not its recent political
history.

Ernesto had just come from south of my home, along Harlem
Avenue at about 143rd Street.That’s an especially telling corner these days.In the middle of the Forest Preserves of Cook
County, that beautiful collar bequeathed by Daniel Burnham, the intersection
has become the place where each corner is occupied by sign-holding
panhandlers.

Because it is in the depth of the forest preserve, not the
various villages surrounding the place, the only block facing those seeking
handouts here will be the occasional Cook County Sheriff vehicle that pulls
over and shags them away.Other than
that, they’re there each and every day. Each and every hour.And a few moments after the Sheriff squad
pulls away.

Ernesto: It is so wrong to see these people begging along the
corner out there.Especially the Santy
Claus guy with the sign attached to his chest saying he’s homeless.

I totally agree,
Ernesto.I’ve known that man for more
than a decade, and he has become a sorry product of his situation.He’s an outcome of Cook County jail and our
broken system of medical carelessness for one who is suffering mental
illness.

Ernesto: Mental illness?He seems fine to me.He should be
working instead of begging.

I totally agree again,
my friend.But he cannot.He is off his meds and is not likely to find
an employer who wants to hear someone talking to himself in Biblical verse for
periods of time while he – what? – packs something into boxes?Didn’t you notice he is talking all the time
he is roving between the cars for handouts?

Ernesto: I don’t roll down the windows.But I have heard from friends he has a car.

Yes?

Ernesto:And an
apartment.A place to live, so he may
say homeless on his coat, but he’s not.

You know, Ernesto, as
I work with those who are truly homeless, they – like you – mythologize this
man.Indeed, he does look like Santa
Clause, and he does work the corners of the street in Harlem.The truly homeless tell exaggerated tales of
his climb to greatness and wealth.They imagine
he has an annual income of well over $100,000 per year.They covet his new Infinity SUV.In fact, one woman who gave him some money
one day saw him in an SUV and began chasing him on Facebook, trying to find out
his apartment, etc., and decrying his falsehoods as homeless.

Ernesto: Don’t give me that one please, it’s too big.You should keep it for yourself.But back to Santy.So, you admit, he’s not homeless, my friend. And his car, he parks it in the forest and walks to his corner.

Of course,
Ernesto.That’s easy, and in fact, I’m
proud of him for it.Despite a state
which birthed him out of Cook County’s jail system and offered him no support
and cast him from the queue of needy people with mental illness (thank you,
Governor Rauner), he survives.He even
has a place to stay.He might even have
a white, beater SUV.And how?He works in the rain and the snow and the
heat and the cold on a corner.He wraps
his feet in strips of cloth and walks on the muddy street’s edge and between
the traffic to achieve a dollar or even more. Maybe many more.

Ernesto: So you admit this homelessness is a total scam.

Scam? But, Ernesto, my
friend, he cannot work.Do you
understand?He is incapable of work
because he hasn’t the support system for on with a mental illness to do so. He
works alone.He panhandles.

Ernesto: But he’s not homeless. He chooses not to work.

Yes, for the moment
he’s not.But he’s always on the
verge.And he’s up every morning at 5
a.m. to get to the corner so others who are trying to do the same thing and
encumbered with the same problems cannot push him out.And believe me, Ernesto, they will.He’s surviving, and he’s working as only he
is able.Isn’t that enough?

Ernesto: You know that some of these people actually have
whole families out there.They park
their cars and send everyone – the kids and wife – to separate corners to get
as much money as they can.

I would imagine you’re
right, Ernesto.Do you believe that is a
scam too?Are all the poor a scam unless they draw a check?

Sunday, May 21, 2017

My wife washes lemons with soap and water.Oranges and limes too.Grapes and avocados sit in soapy water and
await their final rinses after an hour or so.

“Even if we don’t eat the skin or surface part,” she warns
with her wagging Buddhist forefinger, we are handling those parts of the fruit
where pesticides or insecticides have been applied or contacted during the
journey to the local store or farmers market. Wash them and your hands
too.”

In fact, any fruit or tree nut that is consumed totally is
given the treatment – and that’s quite a few spring and summer items we put
into our mouths, isn’t it?

News Release from the EPA on 3/29/2017:

WASHINGTON
-- Today,
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt signed an
order denying a petition that sought to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide crucial
to U.S. agriculture. “We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands
of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human
health and the environment,” said EPA Administrator Pruitt. “By reversing the
previous Administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides
in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making –
rather than predetermined results.” “This is a welcome decision grounded in
evidence and science,” said Sheryl Kunickis, director of the Office of Pest
Management Policy at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “It means that
this important pest management tool will remain available to growers, helping to
ensure an abundant and affordable food supply for this nation and the
world. This frees American farmers from significant trade disruptions
that could have been caused by an unnecessary, unilateral revocation of
chlorpyrifos tolerances in the United States. It is also great news for
consumers, who will continue to have access to a full range of both domestic
and imported fruits and vegetables. We thank our colleagues at EPA for their
hard work.”https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-administrator-pruitt-denies-petition-ban-widely-used-pesticide-0

The Market name for the insecticide Mr. Pruitt has allowed
back into the food chain is Vulcan, the god thrown from heaven by Zeus/Jupiter
for failing to reveal the end of his dominion.Ironically, especially in this case, bug-killers like Vulcan will be the
likely end of our dominion over earth.

The Trump EPA decision supposedly “grounded in evidence and
science,” as Director Kunickis blithely points out, is in fact just the
opposite.According to a recent Mother
Jones article: “Stephanie Engel, an
epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina and a co-author of the Mount
Sinai paper, says the evidence that chlorpyrifos exposure causes harm is
"compelling"—and is "much stronger" even than the case
against BPA (bisphenol A), the controversial plastic additive. She says babies
and fetuses are particularly susceptible to damage from chlorpyrifos because
they metabolize toxic chemicals more slowly than adults do. And "many
adults" are susceptible, too, because they lack a gene that allows for
metabolizing the chemical efficiently, Engel adds.http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/trump-epa-brain-damaging-pesticide

A ban on the use of Chlorpyriphos was finally achieved
during the Obama Administration after a decade-long review of its use and the
concerns on those who worked with the insecticide, manufactured by an
Agri-Scientific sub company of Dow Chemical calledMANA (not the Biblical succor that falls from the sky).A Federal Appeals Court demanded a final stop to the use of the
chemical at the end of March 2017; Vulcan was outlawed for use by the general population in 2000. Note Pruitt’s timely intervention on March 29th.

Reprise 2017?

Chlorpyriphos is classified as an organochloride
insecticide.If you’re old enough, you
might remember the generous smells of DDT on warm evenings as village trucks
rolled down the avenues spraying the treetops for mosquitoes.If you’re younger, you might recall the
decimation of various animals and especially bird species whose eggs were
compromised by the shell-thinning effects of DDT and the later behavioral
aberrations caused by PCB’s.

Both of these chemicals were banned, of course, but it’s
early in the Pruitt/Trump Administration.

According to the EPA Release: “The public record lays out serious scientific concerns and
substantive process gaps in the proposal. Reliable data, overwhelming in both
quantity and quality, contradicts the reliance on – and misapplication of –
studies to establish the end points and conclusions used to rationalize the
proposal. The USDA disagrees with the methodology used by the previous
Administration. Similarly, the National Association of State Departments of
Agriculture also objected to EPA’s methodology. The Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) also
expressed concerns with regard to EPA’s previous reliance on certain data the
Agency had used to support its proposal to ban the pesticide.

And,
of course, we didn’t have to wait too long.On May 15, 2017, in Bakersfield, California, more than 50 workers were
exposed to Vulcan sprayed upwind of them while they were picking cabbages in
their fields.The orchard next to the
cabbage pickers was sprayed, but the drift of the insecticide affected the many
workers.The spray had been applied the
night before, but like many persistent insecticides, the residual amount was
lifted into the air during winds the next day and arrived on top of the workers
in the fields.Vulcan is considered
toxic by ingestion, inhalation or even touch.

But
the EPA now allows it.

Here in the Midwest, we can expect the new “tool” from the
EPA to provide Vulcan for use on soybeans and corn.To the north, apples, peaches, asparagus, and
other delicacies will be subjected.

In 2012, product manager, Keith Miller, celebrated
the possibilities and competitiveness of Vulcan. “With new formulations like Vulcan performing as well
as or in some cases better than competitive EC based formulations, we’re
determined to answer grower and retailer requests for continued use of highly-effective
solutions like chlorpyrifos,” Miller says. “Through aggressive research and
innovation work, we plan to launch eight new formulations of proven products
currently in our portfolio by 2013.”

Chlorpyrifos
is one of the most widely-used agricultural insect control solutions worldwide.
First registered in the U.S. in 1965, it has been on the market for more than
40 years. Today, chlorpyrifos is registered in about 100 countries worldwide.

In fact, before 2000 Chlorpyrifos was the most widely used
insecticide for family gardening.By
2000, the then EPA had seen enough to ban its use for the general public.

Not scared yet?

According to Tom
Philpott’s article in Mother Jones: “In an analysis
of the risks posed by chlorpyrifos released in November 2016, the EPA crunched
data on residues found in food and compared them to the levels at which the
chemical can harm the most vulnerable populations: kids and women of
child-bearing age. The results (found on page 23 of the EPA doc)
are startling. Natural Resources Defense Council researchers turned
them into this handy graphic:”

If you’d like to
place a call to Scott Pruitt, you can do so at this number:

202-564-4700

“Hello, Mr. Pruitt.The use of persistent and virulent organichlorides
was a chapter in our natural history I do not care to return to again and one
in which we cannot afford to do so.We decimated
populations of wildlife and likewise threatened ourselves with chemicals
designed to increase production without concern for dangerous effects on our
children and our planet.Your decision
to provide Vulcan for dusting the very fruit and vegetables that will be
consumed by our families is unconscionable.You should be ashamed as well as eventually held accountable.”

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Call your State
Representative TODAY to urge a NO vote on SB 16, HB 4027, HB 4045 or any
other bill that cuts the pensions of public employees. Dial 888-412-6570 or Click to Call.

In recent years, the Illinois Supreme Court has twice
found legislation reducing the pension benefits of active and retired public
employees to be unconstitutional. So why does Governor Rauner keep pushing to
cut public employee pensions—and why are some legislators going along with
him?

It’s important to note that no legislation before the
General Assembly would cut the pension benefits of current retirees.
There is widespread acceptance that the court has flatly rejected any
reductions in the pensions of those who have already retired. And it’s
important to remember that, despite strong opposition from the unions of We
Are One Illinois, the General Assembly acted in 2010 to significantly reduce
the pension benefits of all those hired after January 1, 2011 (Tier 2 pension
participants). The courts have consistently ruled that only the benefits of
current employees and retirees are constitutionally protected. Benefit
reductions—or even elimination—are legal for any employee not yet hired at
the time changes to the pension code are made.

Rauner and some in the
General Assembly are focused on finding ways to get around the constitutional
prohibition against cutting the benefits of all employees hired before
1/1/2011 (Tier 1 participants). Relying on the principle of “consideration”, they argue
that if employees are given something in return for the reduction in
benefits, then the cuts would be constitutional. Senate Bill 16, House Bill
4027 and House Bill 4045 are all based on this “consideration” model, as are
several other bills that have been introduced.

1.Accepting a delay and
reduction in his/her cost-of-living annual adjustment when he/she retires; or

2.Agreeing that his/her
pension benefit would be calculated using only his/her current salary,
excluding all future pay increases from calculation of his/her benefit.

These bills attempt to compensate employees who choose
Option 1 above by providing for a “consideration payment” of 10% of an
employee’s past pension contributions and lowering the employee’s
future contribution rate by 10%. However, the amount that the
employee receives through this payment would be far short of the amount
he/she would lose.

Union attorneys argue that this scheme does not meet the
“consideration” standard but rather is an involuntary and forced diminishment
because either choice represents a reduction of benefits. No matter which
choice an employee makes, he/she would lose tens of thousands, or even
hundreds of thousands, of dollars over the course of his/her retirement
years.

Moreover, both bills threaten further harm to retirement
security because they initiate a process of moving new employees out of all
the state’s pension systems and placing them in a defined-contribution plan.
This will have the effect of reducing contributions into the systems, thus
exacerbating the underfunding that has consistently plagued all the systems.

Now the battle shifts to the
House of Representatives. HB 4027 and HB 4045 (which have the same core provisions as
SB 16) passed the House Pension Committee earlier this week, but a number of
those who voted to allow them to move out of committee made clear they intend
to vote against them on the floor.

At this time, we don’t know whether the House will vote on
SB 16, HB 4027 or HB 4045. But one of these bills is very likely to come to
the House floor in the next few days.

It’s critical that you call
your State Representative TODAY to urge a NO vote on SB 16, HB 4027, HB 4045
or any other bill that cuts the pensions of public employees. Dial
888-412-6570 or Click to Call.Make clear that these
bills are unconstitutional, unfair, and you expect your representative to
OPPOSE them.

Monday, May 15, 2017

Laurence
Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and professor of constitutional law at
Harvard Law School, has written an opinion in the Washington Post arguing that
“NOW” is the time to impeach Donald Trump.

In fact,
this appeal comes a day before the most recent charges that the President
revealed classified information to Russian operatives and ambassadors in his
Oval Office, information which may well endanger Americans and certainly
threaten the lives of agents working for the United States in dangerous areas
of the world populated by those who might wish the U.S. great harm.

“The time has come for Congress to launch an
impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice.

The remedy of impeachment was designed to
create a last-resort mechanism for preserving our constitutional system. It
operates by removing executive-branch officials who have so abused power
through what the framers called "high crimes and misdemeanors" that
they cannot be trusted to continue in office.

“No American president has ever been removed
for such abuses, although Andrew Johnson was impeached and came within a single
vote of being convicted by the Senate and removed, and Richard Nixon resigned
to avoid that fate.”

An
historical review of the questionable business practices of Donald Trump by
David Cay Johnston, The Making of Donald Trump, follows his blemished career as a
red-lining apprentice in his father’s real estate ventures in New York, his
penchant for seeking adulation even in pretense when calling into media shows
as John Barron in order to extoll his own greatness in third person, and his
employment of the mob and lawyers like Roy Cohn to expedite deals and problems
with immigrant workers razing Bonwitt-Teller during the night.

As we are finding
out: anything goes for Donald Trump.As
long as it all goes to Donald Trump and his close family.

“Now the country is faced with a president
whose conduct strongly suggests that he poses a danger to our system of
government.

“Ample reasons existed to worry about this
president, and to ponder the extraordinary remedy of impeachment, even before
he fired FBI Director James Comey and shockingly admitted on national
television that the action was provoked by the FBI's intensifying investigation
into his campaign's ties with Russia.

“Even without getting to the bottom of what
Trump dismissed as "this Russia thing," impeachable offenses could
theoretically have been charged from the outset of this presidency. One
important example is Trump's brazen defiance of the foreign emoluments clause,
which is designed to prevent foreign powers from pressuring U.S. officials to
stray from undivided loyalty to the United States. Political reality made
impeachment and removal on that and other grounds seem premature.”

Trump’s
flagrant disregard for the Constitution, its checks and balances, the rule of
law, deference to respect and the weight of authority flash before us in an
hourly display: the announcements by his sons that they have access to money
through investors who are “Russian,” his son-in-law’s sister’s willingness to
sell visas to those Chinese interested in spending significant sums for various
enterprises by the family, or his shady involvement with oligarchs in Russian
and other overseas deals requiring borrowing huge sums of money.

“No longer. To wait for the results of the
multiple investigations underway is to risk tying our nation's fate to the
whims of an authoritarian leader.

“Comey's summary firing will not stop the
inquiry, yet it represented an obvious effort to interfere with a probe
involving national security matters vastly more serious than the
"third-rate burglary" that Nixon tried to cover up in Watergate. The
question of Russian interference in the presidential election and possible
collusion with the Trump campaign go to the heart of our system and ability to
conduct free and fair elections.

“Consider, too, how Trump embroiled Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, despite
Sessions' recusal from involvement in the Russia investigation, in preparing
admittedly phony justifications for the firing on which Trump had already
decided. Consider how Trump used the vice president and White House staff to
propagate a set of blatant untruths — before giving an interview to NBC's
Lester Holt that exposed his true motivation.

“Trump accompanied that confession with
self-serving — and manifestly false — assertions about having been assured by
Comey that Trump himself was not under investigation. By Trump's own account,
he asked Comey about his investigative status even as he was conducting the
equivalent of a job interview in which Comey sought to retain his position as
director.

“Further reporting suggests that the
encounter was even more sinister, with Trump insisting that Comey pledge
"loyalty" to him in order to retain his job. Publicly saying he saw
nothing wrong with demanding such loyalty, the president turned to Twitter with
a none-too-subtle threat that Comey would regret any decision to disseminate
his version of his conversations with Trump — something that Comey has every
right, and indeed a civic duty, to do.”

Thus far,
none of the Republican leadership seems willing or even interested in questioning
the lack of leadership in the White House and even less the irreparable harm
its has and will cause or position in the world’s stage.Now, perhaps with lives at risk, American
lives, McConnell and Ryan will do something which reflects their real concern
for the country itself, although such action is sadly doubtful.

“It
will require serious commitment to constitutional principle, and courageous
willingness to put devotion to the national interest above self- interest and
party loyalty, for a Congress of the president's own party to initiate an
impeachment inquiry. It would be a terrible shame if only the mounting prospect
of being voted out of office in November 2018 would sufficiently concentrate
the minds of representatives and senators today.”

About Me

I am a retiree, political activist, social advocate and community volunteer. I taught at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange for 34 years in the Language Arts classroom and worked as an administrator for several years. My current avocations include various community outreach and assistance programs. Having benefitted from employment in a collegial, reflective teaching environment that encouraged dedication and professionalism, I continue to seek the promotion of education at all levels as a long-term effort combining talent, perseverance, commitment, and constant professional growth - not a blind adherence to a business model of measured production.

Copyrights & Fair Use

This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of issues vital to a democracy. I believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law.